Foreign patients being duped, Gurugram police step up drive against cheats

Sanjay Yadav

Gurugram, January 11

The Gurugram police have stepped up their drive, along with private hospitals authorities, to protect foreign patients from being duped by fake policemen.

A special meeting was held in DCP (East) office in which officials of the security management of the hospitals were asked to increase CCTV cameras and issued guidelines and given pamphlets etc to protect foreigners.

In October last year, the Gurugram police had started a special awareness campaign to save the foreigners from being duped and issued written instructions in Hindi, English and Arabic.

As the incidents continued, a special meeting was held by DCP (East) Virender Vij in his office with the security management officers of hospitals, ACPs and SHOs concerned on Tuesday.

In the meeting, security chiefs and marketing teams of all hospitals were instructed to first of all brief the visiting foreign patients that their visas, passports etc are not checked by the police on the way.

Comprehensive arrangements should be made for the safety of the cash available with them and locker facilities should be made available in the hospitals.

“Whenever foreign patients are brought from the hospital by vehicle to their guest house and hotel, their attendants must take a photo of the number plate of the vehicle and keep a copy of the driving licence of the driver with them,” DCP Vij said in the meeting.

“The range of the CCTV cameras installed at the main gate of the hospital should be long and the number of cameras should be increased. Pamphlets of these guidelines should also be placed at the reception of the guest house where foreign citizens are staying,” Vij said.

In the meeting, all ACPs and SHOs concerned, members of the security and management of the hospitals including Medanta, Artemis, Fortis, Max, Narayana and Paras hospitals were present.

Gurugram is a medical tourism hub and international patients come mostly from Algeria, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen.

A gang of fake policemen active in Gurugram for years has been targeting foreign patients and their family members. It has duped them in the name of checking.

“We are making international patients aware and have also asked hospital authorities to help us curb this menace. Our teams are also on the job to bust the gang. We hope that the accused will be nabbed soon,” said Virender Vij, DCP (East).

Recent incidents

• The latest incident took place in Sector 53 area on January 8 when two Kenyans were duped of $1,800 by three fake cops
• Iraqi heart patient Faris Muslim Abbas had died a day after he was duped by the same gang of $15,000 in October last year